RN

by Richard Nixon

By the time I had returned to Camp David from this cross-country swing, however, a surge of negative reaction to the Blue Book had begun to register. Hugh Scott denounced its contents as a “deplorable, shabby, disgusting, and immoral performance by all.” The Wall Street Journal said editorially that while it could see no good grounds in the transcripts for recommending impeachment, “Still, there is such a thing as moral leadership . . . the ‘bully pulpit.’ This is what Mr. Nixon has sacrificed for once and all.” The Chicago Tribune called for my resignation, while other old friends, including the Omaha World-Herald, the Kansas City Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and the Charlotte Observer, echoed their sentiments or even endorsed impeachment. They were joined by the Los Angeles Times, the Miami Herald, and the Providence Journal. Jerry Ford felt that he had to make a comment on the transcripts, so he said, “They don’t exactly confer sainthood on anyone,” and he admitted that he was disappointed by them.

  More and more Republicans began to talk about resignation. John Rhodes, his mind apparently changed from just a few days earlier, now said he would accept my decision to resign if I were to make it. He said that my chances of winning in the House had been steadily reduced; at the moment he put the percentage at 51 to 49 against impeachment. John Anderson, the Chairman of the House Republican Conference, suggested that I consider resigning. In the Senate, Marlow Cook of Kentucky and Richard Schweiker of Pennsylvania called for outright resignation, and Milton Young of North Dakota said I should use the Twenty-fifth Amendment to step aside until I had been proved innocent. Barry Goldwater drew attention when he said he was sure I would resign if I were impeached by the House.

  I was determined not to panic. I would respect everyone’s views and understand the necessity they felt to express them. But I would not quit.

  Haig was stunned by the swell of criticism. He said that the combination of the Chicago Tribune editorial and Scott’s and Rhodes’s statements suggested to him a calculated effort to force me out of office. He worried further about news reports of an “informal” conversation Jerry Ford had had with reporters in which he was quoted as having described his concern that my authority had been “crippled” and that Russia might try to take advantage of this situation. Ford was reported to have said that my failing influence could be seen in Teddy Kennedy’s successful efforts to secure a congressional cutback on aid to Vietnam, and that he had talked to Kissinger about these concerns but not to me. After this report was published, Ford issued a “clarification,” but the damage was done.

  Soon the resignation rumors started taking wild turns: there was a report that Ford had asked his staff to go on “red alert,” and another that I was going to step down within forty-eight hours and that Kissinger was about to fly back from the Middle East to receive the letter of resignation. There was even a rumor that I had had a stroke.

  In an effort to scotch these rumors Haig told reporters that I would consider resignation only if I thought it was in the best interests of the country, and Ziegler released a statement that I had personally approved:

  The city of Washington is full of rumors. All that have been presented to me today are false, and the one that heads the list is the one that says President Nixon intends to résign. His attitude is one of determination that he will not be driven out of office by rumor, speculation, excessive charges, or hypocrisy. He is up for the battle, he intends to fight it and he feels he has a personal and constitutional duty to do so.

  The Blue Book proved conclusively that I had not known about the break-in in advance, and that Dean was wrong when he said that he and I had discussed the cover-up over a period of months. On the other hand, it undercut the impression I had left in my public statements that I had reacted like a prosecutor when Dean informed me of the cover-up. But however damaging any or all of it may have been, nothing on the tapes amounted to an impeachable offense.

  Unfortunately the main Watergate issue had already shifted, and, as had been the case throughout the past thirteen months, I was in the position of settling a point after everyone had already moved on to another one. The release of the transcripts was good strategy to the extent that it proved conclusively that Dean had not told the truth about everything; and to the extent that it showed that in the areas where he had told the truth, my actions and omissions, while regrettable and possibly indefensible, were not impeachable.

  But public opinion is not a court of law, and there would be no trial on this evidence. This was politics, and the effect of the Blue Book was to force Republicans even further into a political corner with me. The transcripts raised the distinctions that responsible congressmen would have to make between what was constitutionally impeachable and what was politically insupportable.

  The Blue Book itself would be undermined in early July when the House Judiciary Committee, after suggesting that we had deliberately dropped the most damaging sections from some of the tapes, released its own book of transcripts.

  In fact, most of the discrepancies between the committee’s version and ours were minor ones that arose because the committee arranged to have its copies of the tapes electronically enhanced, and consequently picked up many words that we had described as “unintelligible.” Some of these additional words or sentences helped our case more than hurt it.

  But there was one admittedly serious discrepancy that dominated all the others. It was the section of the March 22 tape covering my final discussion with John Mitchell, in which I told him that unlike Eisenhower who cared only that he was “clean,” I cared about the men. I told Mitchell that they could go before the Ervin Committee and “stonewall it, let them plead the Fifth Amendment, cover up, or anything else” if they thought they had to. Then I added, “On the other hand, I would prefer . . . that you do it the other way.” This section was not in our version of the transcripts.

  Transcripts Link Nixon to Cover-up was the Washington Post headline when the Judiciary Committee revealed the discrepancy. It was utterly ridiculous to assume that we would have deliberately omitted a damaging section of a tape that we knew the Judiciary Committee already had in its possession. But we took terrible heat for it at the time because we simply did not know what had happened. Only months later, when it no longer mattered, did Fred Buzhardt figure out the answer. Apparently, according to Buzhardt, the committee’s copies of the tapes must have been copied from the originals at a higher volume, with the result that the final section of the March 22 tape, which was inaudible on our copy—and evidently also on the Special Prosecutor’s copy, which had been made at the same volume level—could be heard on the committee’s copy. The bitter irony was that this innocent discrepancy had made us look both sinister and foolish.

  On May 5, in the middle of the uproar over the Blue Book, Al Haig met with Leon Jaworski in the Map Room at the White House. Jaworski told Haig that I had been named an unindicted coconspirator by the Watergate grand jury. If this was true, then Jaworski had not been honest with Haig earlier in the year when he had told him that no one in the White House had been named.

  We knew Jaworski had doubted whether I could constitutionally be indicted while I was President. But he knew that by naming me an unindicted coconspirator he would have a wild card to produce in the courts when he needed it to get more tapes and to guarantee that he could use the tapes in the Watergate trials. Later Archibald Cox, of all people, would denounce Jaworski’s action, calling the technique he used “just a back-handed way of sticking the knife in.” By having me charged by the grand jury, a forum that could not judge me, he could prejudice me before the House Judiciary Committee, the forum that could.

  Jaworski had a deal to propose: he told Haig that if we would give him eighteen of the sixty-four tapes he had subpoenaed, leaving open the possibility that defendants would request additional ones in the trials, he would drop his suit for the rest and not reveal at this time that the grand jury had named me an unindicted coconspirator. If I would not agree to what he called his “compromise,” he was going to announce
the grand jury’s action in open court in order to strengthen the case against me.

  Even after taking so many low blows from so many sources over so many months, I was still surprised that Jaworski would resort to what I felt was a form of blackmail. But the thought of actually ending the courtroom battle over the tapes was like a siren song. Haig felt it too. He said, “We’re at the point that we can see the barbed wire at the end of the street. What we have to do is mobilize everything to cut through it.” St. Clair, however, was opposed to the so-called compromise; he felt that to cave now would forfeit our position that we would give no more.

  Haig urged me at least to listen to the eighteen tapes and not reject the offer out of hand. I returned from Camp David in the evening of May 5, 1974, and went to the EOB office shortly after eight o’clock to begin this task.

  I worked until late that night and for several hours the next morning listening to more tapes. I broke just before midday for some appointments and a talk with Scowcroft about the situation in the Middle East. In the afternoon I listened to the tape of my June 23, 1972, conversation with Haldeman—the tape that would emerge publicly three months later as the “smoking gun.” I heard Haldeman tell me that Dean and Mitchell had come up with a plan to handle the problem of the investigation’s going into areas we didn’t want it to go. The plan was to call in Helms and Walters of the CIA and have them restrain the FBI.

  I listened further and heard myself asking if Mitchell had known about “this thing to any much of a degree.” “I think so. I don’t think he knew the details, but I think he knew,” Haldeman had answered. His voice did not have a great deal of conviction when he said it, but there he was, a week after the break-in, telling me that he thought Mitchell knew.

  I had indicated in all my public statements that the sole motive for calling in the CIA had been national security. But there was no doubt now that we had been talking about political implications that morning. I thought back to my discussion with Haldeman about this very problem in May 1973, when he had insisted that our only motive had been the national security concern that the FBI’s investigation might expose CIA operations. I knew he believed it completely then, and so had I. I also knew that no one would ever believe it now. I consoled myself with the thought that there must be other things that were not apparent on these tapes, things that would explain our later belief that we had been thinking about national security. The city was now full of new reports—and provocative new questions—about the CIA’s apparent awareness of the break-in before it happened and about its activities during the cover-up. Surely we could not have been so wrong as to have completely rationalized a national security concern where none existed. I thought that perhaps there would be something else, something helpful on another tape.

  In the afternoon I talked to Scowcroft, who sent in a report from Kissinger. My letter to Mrs. Meir had apparently had some effect and the Israelis had presented a peace proposal that Kissinger thought had a chance of actually being accepted by the moderate Arab governments.

  I wrote across the bottom of the page: “Personal message to K from RN: You are doing a superb job against great odds—regardless of the outcome. But let us hope and work for the best.”

  The contents of the June 23, 1972, tape were not my primary reason for deciding against Jaworski’s “compromise.” In another example of miscalculation I did not recognize the tape then as the “smoking gun” it turned out to be. I knew that it would hurt—but so had so many other things, and we had survived them. And perhaps the Court would rule in our favor; in the meantime I did not feel others should listen and have to be answerable for what they heard.

  Now I can see that I should have asked Buzhardt to listen to all three June conversations with Haldeman, give me his independent judgment on them, and then have put them out—even though they were in several respects inconsistent with Haldeman’s and my public statements of our recollection of the purpose of the meetings. That would have been damaging, but far less so than being forced to make the tapes public after the Supreme Court’s decision compelled me to do so.

  By this time, however, I had come around to St. Clair’s and Buzhardt’s view that we should draw the line on producing any further tapes. My instinct was still that we had to put a stop to it.

  On Wednesday I notified them both that I had decided not to give up any more tapes. “Perhaps this is Armageddon,” I told Ziegler, “but I would rather leave fighting for a principle.” That afternoon St. Clair called Jaworski and told him my decision. On May 22 I sent a letter to the House Judiciary Committee informing them that I would not supply any more tapes in response to the constantly escalating requests for them. Now the lines were drawn. April 26 had been a symbolic milestone: if I succeeded in completing my full term as President I would be in the White House for one thousand more days. May 22 was another milestone: with this letter to the House Judiciary Committee, whatever happened, I was about to begin the last leg of the Watergate road.

  In January 1973 Washington observers had predicted that I could count on having a margin of between 74 and 125 votes on an impeachment resolution in the House. By March 1974, this margin had been badly worn down by House Judiciary Committee accusations and the attacks on my finances. After the Blue Book was released, Timmons reported a defection of at least twenty-five House members. In mid-May Jerry Ford said that the odds that the committee would vote impeachment were 50-50. The atmosphere spawned more rumors. Now that few people seemed to care about the question of who had ordered the break-in, there was new information that the Democrats themselves had prior knowledge and that the Hughes organization might be involved. And there were stories of strange alliances. In mid-May I received a call from Connally. He had known Jaworski in Texas, and he said he was calling to pass along something Jaworski had told him. The message was: “The President has no friends in the White House.”

  But then the tide seemed to change, and by June it looked as if things were actually beginning to brighten. Whatever other reasons there might have been, a major one was that the Judiciary Committee’s patently unfair tactics had started to backfire.

  Rodino had opened the committee’s investigation of the evidence with the announcement that the proceedings would be governed by rules of confidentiality. After this announcement the committee had voted itself into closed sessions and then promptly started to leak everything that came into its hands. Every tape was labeled “highly damaging” by the partisans on the committee; my finances were described as even “more explosive.” When St. Clair requested that the committee go into open sessions rather than continue its prejudicial game, he was rebuffed.

  One of the clearest examples of the committee’s conduct was a leak about my diary dictation for the night of March 21, 1973, the day that Dean had described the “cancer” growing close to the presidency. Committee leakers told UPI that I had dictated: “Today is March 21. It wasn’t a very eventful day.” This leak, which indicated that I was totally blasé about the information Dean had given me—presumably because I was already part of the cover-up—went out over the networks and wires. In fact, what I had dictated was: “As far as the day was concerned it was uneventful, except for the talk with Dean.”

  The leaks, the posturing, the publicity-mad behavior of the House Judiciary Committee members and staff undermined all their talk about “fairness.” At the same time the highly emotional first reaction to the contents and language of the Blue Book transcripts had run its course. On June 5 Timmons reported that Tom Railsback of Illinois, one of the swing Republicans on the committee, was saying that the evidence was simply not overwhelming in the way it would have to be in order to justify impeachment. Robert McClory of Illinois, another Republican, said optimistically that the committee was now evenly divided: eleven votes for impeachment, eleven against, and sixteen on the fence. John Rhodes called me to say that he had found that the attitude in the House and on the Judiciary Committee had grown more positive over the past week. St. Clair s
aid that his experience always told him when things were going bad because there was what he called a “smell of guilt in the courtroom.” He said, “There just isn’t a smell of guilt in that committee.”

  There were also reports of new grass roots organizations cropping up across the country to help me. And Haig had finally started to organize the staff into task forces to fight impeachment.

  On June 7, 1974, I resumed making detailed diary dictations at the end of each day. I began the first one by summing up the situation as it had appeared at the start of the summer.

  Diary

  I am not going to try to recap the events of this very difficult time, but will try to put some of the immediate developments in perspective and include some observations with regard to various collateral issues that have arisen.

  I have kept in almost daily touch with Timmons in the past couple of weeks, and he believes that we have been gaining slowly but surely among both the Southerners and the Republicans.

  Teddy White, interestingly enough, had talked to Rose and then had talked to Ziegler today. He said that two weeks ago he thought that the House would have voted an impeachment and that we would have won in the Senate by a margin of five or six votes. Now he believes that, as he puts it, we have bottomed out and that the House will not vote impeachment if a vote were to occur today.

  John Connally strongly held the same opinion. Connally believes, for example, that those who vote for impeachment will find that the next time they come up for election they will be wiped out. Of course, we have been thinking for over a year now that the tide was turning, and then events occur which seem to put us behind the eight ball again.

  What will motivate the House members at the present time I think may be their concern that if they impeach, they run the risk of taking the responsibility for whatever goes wrong in foreign and domestic policy after that. They also may be concerned from the Democratic standpoint that if they impeach, they put in office as an incumbent Ford, who would have a united party and an administration behind him against whoever they ran for President. This the Democratic pros must not look to with any relish.